On Frankenstein: Show, don’t tell
I’ve been thinking deeply about Guillermo del Toro’s new Frankenstein, and the thing that stays with me is how subtle and quiet it is.
Most films feel the need to explain everything to you. They want to make sure you know exactly who the bad guy is and what the moral of the story is. It is deliberately restrained. It trusts you to understand the story not through big speeches, but through silence, gestures, and small moments. That quietness gives the story a weight that a louder movie would have missed.
We are used to seeing Victor Frankenstein as a tortured genius, a romantic figure who suffers because he is too smart for his own good. But this film strips that away. Here, Victor is revealed as cold, ruthless, and brilliant, but a fundamentally selfish man.
The film never comes out and tells you this directly. Instead, you have to watch him closely. You see it in the way he stops listening to people the moment they stop talking about his work. You see it in the way he walks past suffering people without even blinking. These aren't big, dramatic villain moments; they are small habits. But they pile up. Eventually, you realise the truth: this man isn't a tragic hero. He is just cruel. realising that on your own is much more unsettling than having a character scream it at the screen.
On the other hand, the Creature is the heart of the film. Del Toro doesn't introduce him with scary music or spooky camera angles. We meet him in silence. He is confused, observing the world, trying to figure out how to exist. His kindness shows up in the smallest details. You see him hesitate before he fights back. You see him watching families from a distance, knowing he can never be part of one. He is constantly trying to make himself smaller, to seem less threatening. It feels like he is apologising just for being alive. When he finally does become violent, it doesn't feel like he was born evil. It feels like a reaction. He is like a wounded animal snapping back after being hurt over and over again. His violence is just a mirror of Victor’s cruelty and the world’s fear. Creature starts as an emotionally blank slate. But Victor rejects him, and people scream at him. You can track his decline scene by scene. Del Toro shows us a hard truth without saying a word: the monster became monstrous only because his creator refused to see him as anything else.
The relationship between Victor and Elizabeth is handled with that same quiet intelligence. There are no grand romantic gestures or screaming matches. Instead, their scenes are light and playful. Elizabeth feels like the most modern person in the movie. She trusts her gut. She challenges Victor’s ego, and for a moment, she brings out the human side of him. But the tragedy is that she slowly realises who he really is. You watch her face change as she figures it out. The distance between them grows wider and wider.
One of the smartest choices in the film is how it handles the storytelling. Usually, Frankenstein stories are told from Victor’s point of view. We see the monster through his fearful eyes. But here, del Toro lets the Creature speak for himself. This changes everything. Once you hear the Creature’s side of the story, Victor’s excuses start to sound hollow. You stop believing Victor’s version of events. The question of "who is the real monster?" stops being a question and becomes something you actually feel in your gut.
Underneath the main story, the film deals with Biblical themes on God, sin, creation, exile and suffering. It doesn't preach to you. Instead, it uses images. You see a stitched-together man walking through a world that hates him. You see a father who plays God but refuses to love his child. You see a lonely figure walking across frozen ice, looking for meaning. It reminds you of Adam being kicked out of Eden, or a fallen angel, but it stays in the background. It allows you to make those connections yourself.
Ultimately, this movie works because it respects the audience. It doesn't spoon-feed you the answers. It gives you quiet moments and lets you do the thinking. It forces you to sit with uncomfortable feelings.
It reminds us that stories don’t need the biggest explosions or the wildest twists. They can unfold pivotal details in whispers: a look that lasts too long, a hand that refuses to reach out, a creature that runs away instead of attacking.
This version of Frankenstein is more than just a horror story. It’s a story about what happens when you have the power to create life, but not the responsibility to take care of it. It shows us that monsters are often made, not born. And it proves that sometimes, silence is the loudest way to tell a story.